Quid Pro Quo
by VO1
Summary: He struggled momentarily, but Zoisite had wrapped him too tight. "Stop what you're doing! Let him die!"


Silver Millennium Story, Written for Ficathon 2009: Songfics. The song I picked was "Danny Says", a Foo Fighters cover of a Ramones song, hence the summary. Feel free to youtube it to listen while you read, although the song makes no sense in the context of the story.

* * *

The coughing fit was so violent that he couldn't find a moment in between to catch a breath, which was never a good sign under any circumstance. His vision went watery as his tenuous hold on consciousness began to slip away, but then Zoisite charged over like the damned cavalry and did…something--apparently a good something--because for a moment the coughing ceased and he could gulp in a few lungfuls of precious air. Everything snapped back into focus, and after a few choking remnants, he could speak again.

He could have used the opportunity to thank Zoisite, who was slipping on a stethoscope, for employing whatever magical medical intervention he had in his bag of tricks to get him to breathe again. He could have said something encouraging to the Prince, who was hovering at the foot of the bed looking on with a textbook expression of fearful anxiety on his face. He could have asked anyone within earshot if the green goddess had really come to see him, or if her tear-streaked face and gentle touch was just a fevered hallucination.

Instead, Nephrite seized the opportunity to roll slightly on his side and weakly shout (or as close as he could get to one, considering) at the curtain separating their beds: "You fucking _pissed_ on me!" before collapsing into burning coughs, again.

The occupant of the bed on the other side of the curtain was also coughing, but managed to choke out a response. "You vomited on me."

Nephrite cleared his throat and winced; everything from his sinus cavities to his stomach would burn with every breath. "I had no choice when I threw up on you! You had a choice when you pissed on me!"

"I didn't piss all over your face and shoulder. Although if I knew you were going to toss on me there, I would have." The last word dissolved into a coughing fit.

"There wasn't even anything to it! It was just fucking water, you goddamn princess."

"Urine is just water, too."

The curtain was yanked aside and Jadeite's face poked out. One of his arms was tied in a sling across his body. "I think I need to hear about this shit, please."

Zoisite popped out the stethoscope out and looped it around his neck. "I concur."

"There is no story." The voice behind the curtain rasped harshly, like the inside of his throat had been scraped by steel wool, but it was still forced out with enough gravitas to shut anyone up.

Anyone who wasn't Zoisite. "C'mon, if you two give up the funny piss story you'll make us happy, aaand—" He held up a small glass bottle filled with clear liquid. "I'll give you the happy drugs that will make you feel really, really good before it knocks you out." He grinned. "No story, and you just get the one that makes your dick shrink and then knocks you out."

"You lie," came the low, rumbling voice from behind the curtain.

"I never lie about side effects, Commander. Especially if it involves the penis."

Nephrite reached up and pawed at Zoisite's sleeve; it was the best he could do, considering his argument with Kunzite was sapping what little strength he had left. "Was Jupiter here? Did she come to see me?"

Zoisite had turned away and was filling a nasty-looking syringe with the clear substance. "Don't try and change the subject. Your choice, comrades: ten minutes of staring at swirling colors on the ceiling before falling asleep and dreaming of titties in your face, or having your cock shrink even smaller, if that's even possible, and then passing out like a kid on his first bender. I myself find talking to floating shapes in the air and having my enormous dick remain unscathed much more preferable to the alternative, but like I said, story time equals happy time."

If Nephrite could have lifted his arms, he would have head-punched the smaller man. "There's not much to it," he admitted.

There was a scratching noise as Endymion pulled up a chair and plopped down, ultimately deciding that if his guardians were joking about dick size and vomiting, they probably weren't going to die right in front of his eyes. "We're listening."

Nephrite let out of few more hacking coughs. He had enough of cold-induced dick-shrinking to last the rest of his lifetime. "Where do you want me to start?"

Jadeite scoffed. "Obviously we don't know anything after we were separated, you wahoo. Start from there."

* * *

After the first surprise shot, ambushes were so predictable. Jadeite naturally took the first shot, up near his left shoulder, but it wasn't his first crippling injury and it wasn't going to be his last, and he was way too good to drop the Endymion illusion over a mere flesh wound. The real Endymion, disguised as a guard, grabbed the injured man before he could even grimace and teleported both of them out of there. The next few shots clanged harmlessly off of the energy dome the Kunzite threw up, a neat trick that he refused to reveal where or who he had learned it from.

"Come out, motherfuckers."

Unfortunately, there turned out to be more motherfuckers than originally anticipated. "We're done," Kunzite ordered, and Zoisite blinked out barely a second later.

The last attack had taken more out of Nephrite than he realized, and Kunzite must have sensed it; he reached over and grabbed his arm before teleporting them both away.

Perhaps Kunzite was a little drained, too, because they didn't reappear in the designated safety zone, but rather at the edge of a forty yard drop into the crashing white ocean. The wrong edge.

Kunzite grabbed him before he could run away. "We're jumping."

It felt like he had been gutted with an icicle. Between falling—_falling_—to his death and being skewered by assassins' arrows, which were probably poisoned or at the very least, pretty freaking dirty, he would opt for the skewering. At least when you were skewered, there was no conscious recollection of falling to your death from a _very high up place_, a very _scary high up place_.

If Nephrite had been born hard-wired with one piece of information, it was this: Fuck heights. He tried to convey this in as few words as possible. "Not jumping."

His Commander's look was flat, as was his voice. "Yes we are."

An arrow passed danger close to them. "No way. Fuck that. You jump, I'll stay here and just get shot to shit."

Apparently Kunzite was finished arguing, because he barely missed a beat before tackling Nephrite and sending them both off the edge of the cliff.

He screamed like a preadolescent girl the whole way down.

* * *

It seemed like all circumstances were steered against them from the beginning.

For one, the ocean was gray and choppy. The only chance to land was to swim directly into a jagged rock wall, or directly at water sweeping under an overhang of stone in a violent rip tide.

"So," Nephrite said, trying to tread water and remove his boots at the same time. "What will it be? Drowning or squashing?"

"Neither." Kunzite grabbed a wooden shield that had been floating nearby; one of the motherfuckers must have thrown it after them in frustration. "We're going to swim parallel to shore."

It would have worked, if the current hadn't been so strong. In a few short minutes, they could barely see the shore.

"Great," Nephrite muttered, and was rewarded with a mouthful of seawater.

The gray sky opened up and fresh water was being dumped on them from above, a few degrees colder than the ocean they were treading in.

"Fuck," Kunzite muttered, and the shield glowed blue for a second, as he magically improved its performance as a floatation device, albeit one too small for them to get on top of. They had to make do with hanging onto the makeshift buoy with one arm, with the other wrapped around each other's back as they tucked into each other, heads on each other's shoulders, in what looked like an intimate embrace, but was really the most efficient way to retain body heat. "Feel strong enough to jump yet?"

They were both shivering, and Nephrite's teeth were clattering together like shutters in a windstorm. "I wish." Every ounce of strength was being used to stay afloat.

It may have only been a few minutes, or a few hours, but the sky was dark when it finally stopped raining, and the clouds were still blocking out the stars. Nephrite couldn't feel his feet, or the ends of his fingers; his head rested on Kunzite's shoulder, cheek to cheek, as they pressed together to retain any bit of body heat remaining, but still they both shivered convulsively. Worse, he was getting sleepy, a warning sign that his body was shutting down, and Kunzite kept asking him questions to keep him awake, which he was equal parts grateful and annoyed by.

"How about now?"

"Nope," his voice was barely a whisper as he forced the word out between his chattering teeth. "I'm really fucking tired."

"Stay awake," Kunzite warned. He still had enough energy to command, even though his teeth were chattering just as much, and somehow he had aspirated enough water to almost drown. He was still coughing it back up, a little at a time. "Can you get anything from the stars yet?"

He looked up, and saw nothing but dark and clouds. "No. Wave coming."

Kunzite's breath hitched. "Over or under?"

"Under. Ready…now!" They held their breath as the wave rolled over their heads, and gasped when the water finally broke.

It was cold. Colder than he had ever been in his life, and he felt himself begin to give up. His body was heavy, and cold, and it would be easy to slip into the water and just…release. Sure, it would probably hurt like hell for a few long minutes, but after that, it would be just blissful forever sleep.

But he would never see Endymion again.

Or her…

His thoughts were interrupted by Kunzite yanking his hair. "Wake the fuck up. That's an order. I'm not dragging a dead body back with me."

"Oh, shut up. You're probably going to die, too."

"We're not going to die," he said, sounding absolutely confident of that fact. It must have been one of those things that were ingrained into his personality, like the inability to make small talk or slouch.

Nephrite was not so optimistic. "Yes, we are going to die. Everyone's going to die sometimes, but we're going to die tonight. So what do you think? Hypothermia and drowning, or just straight up drowning? Wave."

"Over or under?"

"Under. In like…now." He didn't shut his mouth in time, and a tide of freezing, salty water slid down his throat. "Oh shit." He gagged a few times, his stomach turning.

"What?" Kunzite said, moments before Nephrite vomited seawater all over his neck.

"Sorry," he gasped, before retching again. His hold nearly slipped off the buoyant shield, but Kunzite pulled him closer and tightened his grip, not the usual reaction for a guy who had just been thrown up on.

"At least it's warm."

"All body fluids are. Sorry, man."

Kunzite's words were slightly distorted as his teeth continued chattering. "Except now you're going to die of dehydration, on top of everything else."

"I thought you said we're not going to die."

"We're not." He coughed harshly. "They'll find us."

"No, they're not," Nephrite admitted, fighting off another wave of fatigue. "I know you have to keep your game face on and your chin up, Commander, but it really looks like we're going buy the farm tonight. Might as well make peace with it."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. I, for instance, hope to Goddess I drown somewhere away from you so they don't find our bodies hugging like this, lest they get the wrong idea."

Kunzite coughed again, hard. "If we die out here, they'll never find our bodies. Wave. Small one, we can go over."

Nephrite waited until they bobbed over the wave to continue. "Any regrets?"

"Millions. Nothing I can do about it now."

"OK, narrow it down to your biggest."

"I've failed my Prince."

If he had the energy, he would have rolled his eyes. "How? Because you died while protecting him, which is exactly what you're supposed to do?"

"No." He coughed again, deep and hard, and Nephrite wondered at that moment if Kunzite was in worse shape than he appeared. "If I die tonight, it means I gave up, and for my Prince I can never give up."

"Oh holy shit, man. Let it go. Even Endymion understands if you can't fight off freezing to death in the middle of the fucking ocean and drowning. It's not like we have a choice here."

"We always have a choice."

_He sounds so sure_, Nephrite thought to himself. _I do think that he actually believes his own bullshit. _"Regardless, that's boring. What's your second biggest regret?"

"Why don't we talk about yours?" For the first time that night, Kunzite's grip loosened slightly on the bobbing shield, and Nephrite grabbed at his hand and repositioned it.

"OK, we can talk about mine. I regret not motorboating Jupiter the minute I saw her. I'm base and common, I can't help it. But there you are."

They floated silently for a moment before Kunzite spoke. "The twins _are_ quite obscene."

"Thanks. Didn't know that you were looking."

"Well, those gowns don't leave much to the imagination."

He couldn't disagree there. "Now imagine trying not to stare while she's having a sneezing fit."

"Ah. The clasps lost?"

"They never stood a chance, Commander."

"How fortunate." He started coughing, hard. "Wake up."

Nephrite started; he wasn't even aware that he was nodding off. "I'm cold."

"Can't help you there."

"Yes, you can. Tell me something hot about Venus."

"No."

"Come on, we're going to die. And we just discussed my girl's huge breasts, so I want to know something about Venus."

"I take it back; I dowant you to die."

"If you don't tell me, I'm going to make something up, and it's going to be far worse than the reality. You're dealing with a very dirty mind here."

"No."

"I'm imagining that she can loop her ankles around the back of her head."

He coughed. "If I tell you, would you shut the fuck up about her?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you can never repeat it to anyone. Not the Prince, not to Jupiter. No one."

"I'm going to be dead, who am I going to tell? Get on with it."

It was a while before he spoke. "She giggles. Right before she—she…"

This was interesting. "Comes?"

He nearly lost Kunzite's reply in the wind. "Yes."

"That's actually kind of cute."

"You'll die before you repeat that."

"I'm going to die anyway."

"We're not going to die," Kunzite said, before being wracked with a coughing fit so severe that his grip on Nephrite started waning.

Nephrite caught him and squeezed, but the lapping water caught Kunzite in the face, and he choked. "Come on, Commander, hang on." He kept coughing and choking as his grip finally slackened completely and his arm slid into the water. Nephrite couldn't see his face. "Kunzite, don't fucking let go. Come on, breathe."

His body was heavy, and Nephrite realized, horrified, that he wasn't holding on anymore, and he was the only thing keeping Kunzite's face above water. "Shit. Shit. Wake up, man, I can't hold you up by myself. Oh Goddess, fuck." Somehow, it felt that the water was growing warmer, and he didn't mind the welcome flush of heat to his freezing body.

Kunzite awoke with a start and grabbed onto Nephrite's arm that was holding the shield. "Goddess. Sorry."

"We're not going to last much longer," Nephrite replied wearily. The water was too cold, they were too weak, and any minute now one or both was going to succumb to the freezing ocean.

Kunzite's next coughing fit lasted a little too long for him, and he slumped against Nephrite's shoulder again, shivering. "I wiss thaa," he swallowed, and started over, trying not to slur his words. "I wish that I told her—"

"I know," Nephrite said, pulling his Commander's body closer, wishing the same thing.

He shut his eyes, knowing they couldn't hold on for the next wave.

A familiar, distant voice came through the darkness and jerked him out of his fatalist musings. "Hey, what's up? What are you guys doing?"

Nephrite's eyes popped open; he would know that voice anywhere. "Zoi?" he shouted as loud as he could, which was more like a hoarse bark.

The water around him began shining in the dark, and he looked up and squinted at the spotlight shining directly on him from a medium-sized vessel. Dark figures were clambering over the sides into rescue boats, and the distinct voice was one of them. "So you guys missed dinner. We got tired of waiting so we ate without you, sorry!"

"Zoi!" he shouted, a bit louder. Kunzite was unresponsive again. "Hurry the fuck up! It's fucking freezing!"

He nearly wept with relief when the boat reached them, and strong hands reached out to pull them out of the water. He didn't have the strength to help them. "Zoi, Zoi," he said frantically, nearly biting his tongue off between his teeth as they clattered together. "The Commander's in bad shape."

Zoisite grabbed him by the back of his jacket and hauled him on board. "Hate to break it to you, but you're both in bad shape. Now shut up."

The night air hitting his skin was colder than the water, and he convulsed with a fresh wave of shivering before being wrapped almost completely in a thick blanket. "Can I sleep now?"

"NO!" Zoisite kicked him in the arm. "We're going to get you back to the palace, so don't freak out. Oh, and it's warm in there, so it's going to hurt. Sorry."

It did hurt, but it wasn't warm. In fact, it was still kind of cold. He curled into a fetal position.

Zoisite jumped him directly to the infirmary, where a team of medical personnel was waiting eagerly to get into each other's way. Jadeite hovered around, one of his arms in sling, and his jaw dropped when he saw what kind of condition Nephrite was in. "Holy shit. Can I do anything?"

Zoisite jerked his head to the other bed. "Dry him off, quickly." Nephrite followed his gesture, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Kunzite.

"He's blue," he choked out.

"Yep," Zoisite agreed, pulling out a knife and slicing through his sodden clothes. "Hopefully we can fix it."

Nephrite snuck another look underneath Zoisite's arm. His Commander's still face was indeed tinged blue, especially his lips and eyelids, and splattered with blood from his nose to chin. "What the fuck happened?"

Zoisite ignored the question and shoved what felt like a warm brick underneath his arms and against his neck. Nephrite tried again. "How did you find us?" He coughed thickly, and had a sinking feeling that it wouldn't be the last time that night.

"Kunzite. He was sending us distress calls the entire time."

That explained the blood. "Really? He didn't say anything. I could have helped."

Zoisite smirked and continued piling on the bricks. "And then you would have passed out, and you would have both drowned." He pulled the side of the blanket up and wrapped Nephrite's body in it, until he was nearly swaddled. "He knows what he's doing. Lucky thing he didn't attract any sharks, though, with that amount of blood loss."

That explained the quick fade and fainting. "Shit, I'm going to owe the guy a drink after this, for sure."

"At least that. Hey, can you urinate? It will help with getting you warmer, believe it or not."

"Right now? I—guess so. Do I still have a dick or is it all the way up near my lungs?"

"He's awake," Jadeite called from the other bed. Zoisite paused in helping Nephrite roll over.

"Ask him if he can piss."

A beat. "He says no. He went in the ocean."

A sudden, horrifying realization came to Nephrite like a club to the face; the spreading warmth that he felt in the water wasn't his imagination, after all. "Wait, what?"

Jadeite appeared in his line of vision, wincing as he jostled his injured arm. "Said he pissed when you guys were in the water. He woke up mid-stream."

He struggled momentarily, but Zoisite had wrapped him too tight. "Stop what you're doing! Let him die!"

He started coughing again, and it was the last conscious thought he had for days.

* * *

The next week was hell; the only thing Nephrite had to compare it to was malaria, and while malaria was, by far and large, much worse, probably because he didn't expect to survive it, but the ensuing bronchial infection from their nautical adventure was certainly no picnic. He couldn't stop coughing; it kept him from sleeping more than a few hours at a time, and pulled a muscle in his solar plexus that would jostle with an electric needle of pain every time he inhaled. His fever spiked and muddled his brain so that he forgot where he was and why he felt this way, and once, he imagined Jupiter's lovely face hovering over his, and she was crying. He thought he told her to stop, he very well might have, but he closed his eyes and drifted off and couldn't be sure later, when he could think straight. He was almost positive that he said something about her glorious rack, though, because it was all he could dream about that night…or day, whatever it was.

He finally woke with a clear head late in the afternoon, when the sun was slanting orange rays through the windows at the end of the ward. "Kunzite?"

No response. However, the Prince stepped out from behind the curtain and rushed to his bedside. "Nephrite! Thank Goddess you're awake, how do you feel?"

"Like shit. How's the Commander?"

Endymion pushed his dark hair off of his face; for convenience, he always had the same haircut as Jadeite. "Um, alive."

That wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement. "Can he talk yet?"

"Um, not really. He coughs a lot, and it hurts to breathe, so he just doesn't say anything."

Nephrite shifted; it felt like his lower extremities were made of lead. "Let me know when he can, so I can ask him why the fuck he pissed on me."

Endymion nodded. "Ah yes, Zoisite said you might be hacked off about that. He said that it's usually a normal biological response to extreme physical stress."

"It's easy for him to say. He didn't get _pissed_ on."

* * *

Zoisite reached for Nephrite's arm and began swabbing off a clear spot. "I'm still standing by 'normal biological response'. Hold still." He stabbed the needle into the clean area and pressed the syringe chamber down.

"Hear that?" Kunzite said weakly from the behind the curtain. "Normal biological response."

"Bullshit. I will get my revenge, just you wait." He turned to face Zoisite. "Please tell me you gave him the dick-shrinking drugs."

He laughed. "I wouldn't do that to my boys. You both got the happy drugs, even though your story pretty much sucked."

"Hey, hook me up, too," Jadeite said, holding his injured arm out. "I'm busted."

"Sack up, you cunt, you're not hurt that badly."

"There was one good part in their story," Endymion interrupted, leaning closer. He brought one fist to his mouth and cleared his throat before continuing. "Tell us more about Jupiter's tits."

Jadeite groaned. "Don't make him do that, Prince, not when he's halfway to Elysian already."

"You!" Zoisite flicked him with the end of his stethoscope. "Shut up. I want to hear this. Do they bounce? They must bounce."

Nephrite wasn't seeing flashing colors, but there was a halo forming around Endymion's face; a golden halo, the color of cut wheat, and his body felt loose and warm. Something was going on in his head, and every thought and word seemed to hold the truth of the universe within their space. How very interesting, he thought, as a slow smile spread across his face. "Oh, they bounce."

"Nephrite." The stern voice behind the curtain was stuttered with coughs. "Don't say another word. That's an order."

"They are _perfectly_ round…"

"Oh my Goddess, shut your mouth, if she ever finds out—" He coughed again, the sound rattling in his chest. Nephrite imagined that if he could see his Commander's face, it was probably be fixed with a furious expression and red as a summer tomato. Or red like those odd shapes floating gently against the ceiling. "You're going to regret…saying…what…oh. Well, now, that's a lot of blue."

"We're not going to tell," Endymion cut in hurriedly. "Keep going."

His halo was growing and pulsing with new arcs of gold light, and Nephrite took that as a divine sign to continue. "They're _way _more than a handful, and when you squeeze them, she starts panting…and the best part is, they're squishy, but not too squishy. They're like, squishy-firm, like, uh…"

"No, Nephrite, don't." The lone dissenter in the room remained honorable still, despite the fact that his voice had taken on a dreamy quality. "Shut the hell up, it's for your own good. Where did all this blue even come from? This room isn't blue. Zoisite, I'm seeing blue. Fix it."

Nephrite didn't know what he said in response, but he managed to get enough out in between staring at the swirling colors in the air that the three healthy men were alternating between laughing and egging him on, and his last memory before drifting off was Jadeite covering his open mouth with his uninjured hand in shock while rainbows danced behind his head.

The flash of gold and green nearly covered the blue, but it was three women who crawled through the window, their brilliance and diaphanous gowns covered with heavy cloaks. The smallest of the trio rushed forward, throwing her hood back to reveal navy hair that curled around her ears. "Did you try it?" she said breathlessly to Zoisite, nodding at the empty syringes on the table, her eyes glittering from excitement. Clearly, the happy-go-lucky pharmaceuticals originated in a different world entirely.

Zoisite looked just as excited to have dosed his comrades. "Worked like a charm. Knocked this guy out like a light," he gestured to Nephrite, who was completely unconscious. "And the Commander is getting there. Hallucinating his face off in the meantime."

Mercury nodded, a flush gathering at the base of her lovely white throat. "Sorry, the side effects can't be helped. I hope it didn't bother them too much."

Jadeite snorted a quick laugh and clapped Mercury on the shoulder; she jumped, still not used to the casual, friendly contact from him. "Are you kidding? That was the best part."

"Don't take that off!" Kunzite suddenly burst out, suppressing a cough. Jupiter froze, startled, her emerald eyes wide with shock and her cloak halfway off of her shoulders. His expression softened. "Believe me, Lady, don't do it."

Venus leaned forward and touched his hand. He grabbed for it, desperate. "Leave yours on, or else I might start going on about how your breasts look too, the next time I'm doped up like this."

Everyone's face was frozen in shock; Jupiter was reddening by the second. Kunzite rambled on; his gray eyes unfocused, twin pools of melting steel. He coughed. "I tried to stop him, but he wouldn't shut up, I tried to even though the idiot puked on me. I owe him no favors after that. It was chunky and disgusting."

His eyes were half-closed as he drifted away.

No one spoke; Jupiter's eyes and mouth were popped open as if by invisible strings as she clutched her cloak in front of her body.

Mercury cleared her throat, breaking through deafening silence. "Well, like I said, the side effects can't be helped."

Jadeite let out a low whistle. "Remind me never to throw up on him."


End file.
